Diary: Stuart Hands of the Toronto Jewish Film Festival

A week in the life of Stuart Hands of the Toronto Jewish Film Festival

The National Post takes you through a week in the life of a notable cultural figure. This week: Stuart Hands is the program manager of the Toronto Jewish Film Festival, which runs April 11 to 21. For tickets and information, visit tjff.com.

Monday
This year the Festival screens many remarkable Israeli films as we commemorate the country’s 65th anniversary. Over the years, we have seen new trends emerge in the country’s film output. A number of our programmers and I have noticed a great crop of Israeli “genre films” (such as musicals, horror films, screwball comedies and psychological thrillers). A few years ago, the Festival screened a musical TV miniseries made by Eytan Fox (The Bubble, Yossi) called Mary Lou, about a young drag queen in search of his mother. To me it was clear that Fox understood the conventions of the musical and how they push the story forward and develop the main characters. A year later, we screened what has been called the first Israeli “slasher” film, Rabies. A Tel Aviv University film lecturer, Aharon Keshales and his former-student, Navot Papushado, co-directed this well-crafted and intelligent film. The filmmakers clearly understood what today’s horror film fans expect and cleverly manipulated the “slasher” film conventions to create something fresh that spoke to modern Israeli society on a deeper level.

Tuesday

Genre films are rarely produced in Israel, but there is much potential for change. This year, I, along with fellow Festival programmer Jérémie Abessira, are very excited about two horror-comedies, which are being screened on one bill during the Festival. There’s Poisoned, a fun and exciting 45-minute film about a young nebbish battling his fellow Israeli soldiers, who have been turned into flesh-eating zombies. Then there’s Cats on A Pedal Boat, pictured, a self-parodying, very low-budget tribute to American teen films of the ’80s. Perhaps it can be described as an odd but hilarious cross between Piranha and The Goonies. Both films are being co-presented with the Toronto After Dark Film Festival. This double-bill is one of the programs that I most excited about attending. The director of Poisoned will be there, and I look forward to hearing about the future of this impressive cycle of Israeli films.

Wednesday
Since joining the Toronto Jewish Film Festival in 2006, I have noticed how few British films have been produced about the Jewish experience. The most memorable in recent years have been Sixty-Six, starring Helena Bonham Carter, and last year’s eccentric documentary How to Re-Establish a Vodka Empire. Compared with the United States, markers of Jewish identity are not as easily found in British film and television. (Or, as someone who grew up with Woody Allen and Seinfeld, am I just not recognizing British signifiers of Jewish identity?) But there’s a sign things are changing. Films with more Jewish content are being produced and more studies are currently being written chronicling the impact of Jewish artists and entrepreneurs on the British film and television industry. For this year’s Festival, when soliciting films, I paid particular attention to what was coming out of Britain, and ended up with a smashing lineup of films from across the pond.

Thursday

Although not many British films are normally produced about the Jewish experience, we have found a great selection to present at this year’s Festival. Exploring the history of the Jewish community in Leeds, the poignant documentary The Last Tribe offers rare insight into the struggles and successes of the Jews of Britain. The film also provides an interesting counterpoint to the often-told narratives of American Jewish assimilation. On a lighter note, the British reality show Jewish Mum of the Year, pictured above, is a hilarious and highly addictive series that aired on U.K.’s Channel 4 and was watched by 1.6 million Brits. We are proud to have this original series make its North American premiere at our Festival. I am convinced Toronto audiences have never seen anything quite like it. Lastly, our program of Jewish comedy shorts features two little gems from Britain that, for me at least, now begs the question: Is there such a thing as British-Jewish humour?

Friday
This year, the Toronto Jewish Film Festival is programming a poignant Israeli experimental documentary about photography and memory called Hunting Time. Over the past few years the Festival has been aiming to include films that are challenging artistically. Sometimes, we come across wonderful experimental short films, only to find that we have no appropriate features with which to pair them. A few years ago, we took a chance on an avant-garde campy musical feature called The Stockholm Syndrome. A fellow programmer, Allen Braude, introduced the film to an audience of 20 or so. The next day, an older, well-dressed couple who attended the screening approached Allen, who expected them to question the programming we do. Instead, to his delight, they expressed how pleased they were to have seen a film so different from what they would normally see in theatres. Of course, this unexpected feedback taught us to not make assumptions about people, but it also reinvigorated us to continue screening artistically challenging work, in the hopes of eventually cultivating an audience that will appreciate them.